March 2023
The Local Good Food Alliance, Sustaining Dunbar.
The Local Good Food Alliance (LGFA) was set up in December 2020 to create a network and forum for people in Dunbar and surrounding areas who are interested in food and local growing. Consultation with this group proved a valuable way to identify the obstacles people face when growing for a local market, and how collaborative work can help solve problems on a community level. After initial funding for this project came to a close in July 2021, the ambitions of the group were picked up again in January 2022 when Sustaining Dunbar (SD) was awarded the Scotland Loves Local Funding. This enabled SD to employ a Local Good Food Co-ordinator to develop projects and ideas from the original consultation. This is a summary of the work completed to date, March 2023.
Reducing Food Waste
In July 2021, SD purchased a Vigo Hydropress, an apple mill and juice pasteuriser to be able to juice large quantities of fruit, mainly apples, pears and grapes which otherwise would go for composting. This equipment was in addition to the manual apple press and mincer that is also available for loan. In spring 2022, we set up an online booking system to allow community groups and local apple growers (including private householders) to borrow the equipment and process their own fruit locally for a donation to the Belhaven Community Garden. This has resulted in creating a small income stream for the garden and has connected many apple growers in the area, and as far afield as Edinburgh, the Borders and Mid-Lothian. These connections are valuable to support growers in their choice of apple and pear trees for cultivation, exchanging best practice for pruning methods and for sharing pruning techniques.
The Hydropress in action
During autumn of 2022, there were 32 bookings for the equipment. 8 of these were for community events in Dunbar, Tynninghame, or local community gardens or schools. At these events, the public were invited to bring surplus apples for juicing. Although the overall volume of fruit was not recorded for all events, the apple press takes 60 kgs of milled apples in 1 pressing, producing 30 litres of juice. At 1 community event, we completed 4 pressings, saving 240 kilos of apples going to waste and creating 120 litres of juice. The LGFA coordinator administered the bookings, uplift and drop off of equipment, and ran or facilitated the training sessions for the equipment from July 2022 through to November 2022.
Adding Value Through Local Processing
While community apple pressing produced apple juice for local people, SD also decided to support a local amateur cider maker in his attempts to use local fruit to create 2 prototypes using locally sourced apples. Lewis borrowed the Hydropress, apple mill and pasteuriser to process fruit from 3 local spray-free or organic orchards: St Baldreds, Clarkington Estate and Belhaven Community Garden. He is prototyping 2 products, apple juice and cider. This is what he’s produced from the 2022 harvest:
Volume of apple juice - 107x 750ml bottled and pasteurised. Volume of cider - 600L currently brewing
Next steps for these products - currently getting labels printed, sell the apple juice to the Crunchy Carrot and other similar shops. Marketing might extend to some online promotion. Cider needs blending, bottling, potentially, secondary fermentation in bottles, and labelling.
If these prototypes turn out to be successful, we will be in discussion with Lewis about next year’s harvest and how we can support him with the community equipment.
Preserves from Belhaven Community Garden
The July harvest of redcurrants and blackcurrants was abundant in 2022. We froze over 18 kilos of surplus fruit, and that was after the 40 garden volunteers had taken what they wanted. The LGFA coordinator and volunteers made a couple of test recipes with the produce in the autumn, before organising a community preserve making day in the new kitchen Belhaven Parish Church.
56 x 300ml jars of blackcurrant jam and 65 x 228ml of redcurrant chutney were made, labelled and sold at the local community shop, the Crunchy Carrot. This has provided the Belhaven Community Garden with another small source of income and has supported our local retailer to sell local produce. The SLL funding covered the initial outlay for jars, labels and freezer bags as well as LGFA coordinator time to deliver produce and record sales over time.
The whole experience was very positive for the garden volunteers, who are very interested in repeating this in autumn 2023 with new recipes. Next steps: design a better label with the BCG logo.